


In Plain Sight

by farevenasdecidedtouse



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 05:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5900656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/pseuds/farevenasdecidedtouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could never last, Csevet knew full well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



> We sincerely hope this is a satisfactory take on your specified prompt for Maia/Csevet. Either way, happy Valentine's Day and our thanks for keeping us writing in this fandom.

High collars had been fashionable since Csoru Zhasanai had contrived to make them so for both sexes, though men generally eschewed the breastbone-deep cut of the bodice the now ex-Empress had affected as well. As such, Csevet could stand at the side of the Emperor’s chair at each session of the Corazhas, face and ears the picture of the polite, disinterested civil servant, and allow himself occasional instants to revel in the profusion of love bites left on the white curve of his neck, (those places slightly below his jaw and just above the dip of his collarbone in particular, places that Edrehasivar— _Maia_ —could use to turn him into a boneless, whimpering thing who would come undone at the lightest of touches) hidden beneath starched layers that just brushed the underside of his chin. In the next moment it would pass and Csevet would note down another agenda item, handwriting only slightly loosened from its usual tight, legible script by the prickles of half-remembered touch ghosting over him like cobwebs.

It was the same façade that had shielded him through encounters with irate message recipients or clients who imagined advances would be welcome following a kind word or two. The very act of obscuring his emotions with the aggressively neutral, polite manner he had cultivated through the years lent a certain frisson of pleasure to each imperial audience in the Tortoise Room, audiences conducted from the same desk over which Csevet might have been bent the previous night, squirming and gasping words of encouragement as Maia thrust into him like a man possessed. He felt it lent a certain edge to his composure, an energy that sparked through his every step and sentence while not detracting from the performance of his work in any discernable way. Ultimately, he supposed the game was no different than that played every day by courtiers who hid their true selves behind court-approved emotions and words. For them, however the stakes were high, higher than an ex-courier and the least-favoured, last-in-line Imperial scion could ever have predicted for themselves. The obfuscation took the occasional tone of a contest between the two of them—who could discuss the day’s business in the most neutral manner over breakfast, who proceed through each audience glancing at the other the fewest times until the Alcethmaret grilles were closed, the gaslights dimmed, and they were in each other’s arms once again, every endearment denied to them in the public eye spilling from ardent lips between every urgent, tonguing kiss.

It could never last, Csevet knew full well. The mistress or lover of an emperor, no matter how well-hidden, would always be found out, through discovery or simply by dint of malicious gossip that could transmute itself into the accepted truth like lead to gold in the alembic of some ancient alchemist. Perhaps the nohecharei’s discretion could not be trusted, perhaps the servants knew more of subterfuge than they let on. Perhaps the soon-to-be Empress would become jealous of her new husband’s affections, though privately Csevet doubted Dach’osmin Ceredin had such a capacity any more than she could have hidden her true resilience and loyalty for long.

(For her burgeoning devotion to Csevet’s beloved, for the dancing lessons and the candid conversation and the fierce note in Barzhad script that still lay filed with other relics of the first coup, he had resolved to love her as well as Maia possibly could, come what may.)

Their time was limited one way or another, and thus it would not be wasted while the double-edged pleasure of secrecy filled him. Every correspondence read aloud to Maia’s earnest attention, every word spoken in a public setting with the Emperor or about him, held the thrill of the forbidden that he could by no means hint at and that thus carried its own sharp enjoyment underlaid with a pain exquisite in its singularity and more intoxicating than new wine. Perhaps in the end it would be this very thrill, something that he felt that on some days spilled out of him like light refracted through a prism into its component colors, that would doom them both. Perhaps those around him would see, but acknowledge the façade and overlook the truth in the absence of any overt impropriety save in every gesture and line of Csevet’s love-lighted face. Perhaps.

It could never last, Csevet knew full well, but he could hope.


End file.
